Mine

Jen Crawford

Mine

 
 
The mine’s blue eye emptied twenty years ago. We stayed. We married. We climbed into the cabs of our separate excavators & in the mine’s black socket began to dig. The dust—it looks like steam peeling off a black cup—is dryer than smoke. We watch it all day. On our breaks, Jasmine rolls the darts and rattles her lungs at me. My lungs rattle back. There’s no one else.
 
The ninth of eight empty dorm rooms is ours. We use the seventh of six closed docks. The twelfth of eleven sunk barges takes our work.
 
Last month I pierced at last the seaside wall of the open pit. And now we see the ocean while we work.
 
 
 
 

Jen Crawford is the author of eight poetry books and chapbooks, including 2016’s Koel (Cordite Books). She teaches poetry and creative writing within the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra, Australia, and has also taught in Singapore and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She was raised in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Philippines and holds a PhD from the University of Wollongong.